


this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

by GibbousLunation



Series: Tangled AU [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Tangled (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Isolation, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Relationship, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), bad parenting aka Mother Gothel, crowley adopts a human, i realize the premise of this sounds odd but there is a jail break so how bad could it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 21:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GibbousLunation/pseuds/GibbousLunation
Summary: Aziraphale hadn’t been expecting to be hit by frigid rain water, you see. Or the ensuing tumble from a muddy trail when his horse had been frightened by a nearby bolt of lightning. He hadn’t expected to actually injure himself, because, frankly, he never had before.When he’d seen the tower he hadn’t thought of how odd it was for the structure to be alone in the midst of a dense forest. Or about how old it appeared from the outside, or even bothered to attempt for a door. He’d simply miracle’d himself up, thinking he would be granted this one fraction of energy from Upstairs if not for their benefit (Uriel hated paperwork, or at least, their blank unimpressed stare certainly did not appear to become less unimpressed at the sight), and thinking of nothing other than a nice, dry place to rest.He hadn’t, perhaps, naively, thought there would be someone living in there.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Series: Tangled AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610092
Comments: 11
Kudos: 85





	this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taizi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/gifts).



> This is a gift for the fantastic Tai because we watched Tangled and immediately started spitballing AU ideas that led us to two very different places, and thus this was made. They have a soft spot for Crowley's soft spot for kids and I have a soft spot for gifting Tai things in general, oh what a tangled web we weave.   
> This is potentially the oddest fic in terms of tagging I have ever posted, but also maybe the softest.

Gabriel always said he was naïve; of course he was, Aziraphale had spent a millennium as a cherub before the whole Eden debacle, he’d been exactly as naïve as God had created him thank you. It wasn’t as though he’d had much of an opportunity to be anything otherwise.

Thing was, Gabriel had always said it as though it was a bad thing. As though Aziraphale’s absolute fascination with flowers and the shades of green and blue swimming through the grass as it shifted in the breeze, with the way birds lifted their heads and felt the pull of Her call to the warmer waters and fairer skies and trusted, was something to be pitied. Frowned upon.

Aziraphale would never say it, or think it too clearly, but a part of him thought the whole thing was a tad unfair, really. It wasn’t as though he’d been allowed access to any of the serious looking manila folders, the diagrams and blue prints of the whole creation business. He hadn’t even been allowed to help. Too much ‘Here’s your sword, that’s your post, swing at anything that gets too close or doesn’t fit the dress code, there’s a good chap’ for things like queries or explanations.

Besides, angels weren’t meant to have those. Either of them, content to be where they were told with full confidence, as it were.

Aziraphale secretly half thought very very quietly, that he’d never been much of a good angel. He’d been a great cherub, back when he’d been tasked with only the nice job of singing in the constant choir and granted nice and gentle head pats from Her as She hummed along. But then she’d gone away to Make things and his role had shifted and nobody had bothered to follow up with his qualifications, he supposed.

Didn’t much help he’d gone from demotion to demotion so quickly afterwards no one quite knew where he fit into the whole picture anymore.

Naivety wasn’t as bad as Gabriel made it sound, though. Not with all the careful rounding out of the sharp words as though it were a particularly prickly fruit he gave it. Aziraphale thought it nice, being naïve meant there was always something new to learn and marvel at, after all. A bright side to the dark cloud of the whole, well, punishment business that tagged along with demotions.

He tried not to think about that. Two wings were just fine, really.

Anyway, it wasn’t his decision to be locked Upstairs for decades upon decades at a time on and off for ‘training’ and ‘performance reviews’. He was rather disheartened when he’d been able to return to Earth in fact, to find a good thousand years had passed without his company. But, golden outline of it all, there had been a rather large assortment of things to learn. And, joy upon joys, he’d come back in time to find that those funny little humans had gone and invented books.

Catching up was interesting in some ways; last he’d been on Earth had been a difficult business what with the smiting and the first born children. All part of the plan, as Gabriel would say. Aziraphale wouldn’t let himself think on the dark smudge against his heart where those years lay lest Gabriel decide he wasn’t up to snuff for the Earth business at all, but it spread a little bit more every day it went on. He was almost relieved when he’d been called up for meetings, until the whole thing had turned into an interrogation on his peculiar lack of smiting or any such divine intervention.

Trying to explain the tinge of grey where Crowley had been sat by his side led to another round of questions when he’d panicked and leapt onto discussing humanities brand of free will, which at the time meant a lot of devotion towards wine and gods with immense propensities towards petty revenge. Gabriel hadn’t taken kindly to the suggestion that he might have inspired a round of story telling during his last ‘revelation’ gone wrong, and so Aziraphale had been subjected to another training course, and well. Five hundred human years later, Aziraphale had finally convinced them he had a job to do, actually.

He rather thought Michael gave poor presentations, but he made sure not to think that too loudly.

Earth was still just as beautiful as he remembered, although now there were all these odd stone towers and pointed buildings everywhere. Humanity had done quite well, he supposed. Armour was nicer, and the art was more intricate, and oh, the words. The lovely, enrapturing words.

He longed, just a little, just a half thought, to find Crowley. To have the demon explain all the funny things humans had done and the fantastic things they’d learned and show Aziraphale all of it. Crowley had always been better at understanding humans anyways, part of the temptation aspect he supposed. Hard to lead someone astray if you couldn’t grasp what it was they sought.

Crowley had also called him naïve before, once. It hadn’t sounded like a bad thing when he’d said it, though. He said it like Aziraphale was a nice place in the sun where he could curl up and unspool all his thoughts, like his naivety was a strength Crowley could moor himself against and nod off upon for a little while. The thought made some part of Aziraphale’s chest beat out of sync, oddly.

There were a lot of things Crowley knew of, that he hadn’t said just yet. They’d been in the area of tentatively stepping into nearly friendly conversation when the ‘re-education’ business had hit; he’d found himself fantasizing about the wine and the oysters and the strange close-cropped hairstyle Crowley had undertaken on occasion while sitting in the pale office rooms. Almost (dangerously) wondering whether Crowley would notice him gone, and was perhaps thinking of their meeting fondly as well. He didn’t like the way that last thought would hit him, though. Sort of a half leap into a stretch of vertigo, like overlooking a cliff face.

Best not to ponder too much.

Perhaps, all in all, Aziraphale was naïve in the sort of sharp and foul way it fell from Gabriel’s mouth. Perhaps he was less lit from within by wonder and more so moribund with foolish carelessness, because he couldn’t have dared to fear the Earth the way the Archangel seemed intent on trying to force him into.

All the lectures, all the presentations, all the long hours of paper work and filing and ‘meetings’ that knifestepped around flat out interrogations, couldn’t shake how beautiful the sunsets were when they spilled across the clouds. Could not steal the way humans painted their clothes in brighter and brighter shades, the way the animals chattered in the woods, the way they kept consistently, constantly, overcoming everything heaven and hell seemed to throw in their path.

It wasn’t in him to fear, this, he knew. But that was a dangerous thought to have it seemed as well.

Aziraphale hadn’t been expecting to be hit by frigid rain water, you see. Or the ensuing tumble from a muddy trail when his horse had been frightened by a nearby bolt of lightning. He hadn’t expected to actually injure himself, because, frankly, he never had before.

He hadn’t known what _pain_ was.

It was all well and good enough to read about it, or watch it happen with growing consternation and discomfort (he would later understand as guilt, and be rightly horrified), but to _feel it_ was overwhelming. He had remembered Gabriel’s frown, though. The pointing and the stern condescending ‘now now’s’ and the looming threat of obscene levels of paperwork if he were to be sent back up before their next appointment. He knew what discorporating was, and would rather have liked to avoid that with a nice thank you please.

When he’d seen the tower he hadn’t thought of how odd it was for the structure to be alone in the midst of a dense forest. Or about how old it appeared from the outside, or even bothered to attempt for a door. He’d simply miracle’d himself up, thinking he would be granted this one fraction of energy from Upstairs if not for their benefit (Uriel hated paperwork, or at least, their blank unimpressed stare certainly did not appear to become less unimpressed at the sight), and thinking of nothing other than a nice, dry place to rest.

He hadn’t, perhaps, naively, thought there would be someone _living_ in there.

Or that she would be so, so terribly alone.

Getting smacked in the face with a frying pan also would be high on his list of unexpected outcomes, especially since, at the time, he’d had no idea what a frying pan was. He’d have attempted to yelp or miracle something softer in her hands, but unfortunately had been gifted with the suddenness of blacking out before he could do either.

He woke up on a bed.

“Um,” he blinked, and pushed his hands underneath him to sit up. The abrupt way his head swirled and sang with dizzying pain told him that would be a poor idea. “Ow!” He added, and felt quite gratified at the opportunity to finally do so. Aziraphale almost unthinkingly miracle’d the ache away, and the lump that went with it, but caught himself last second right before he snapped his fingers.

For one thing, Gabriel was always rather insistent about the inherent dangers of humanity. Aziraphale would desperately loathe to hear him gloat, or worse, appear at the end of the bed with his hands upon his waist and that smirk. No doubt he’d use the opportunity to lock Aziraphale back in the labrynthine offices upstairs for another She knows how long.

For another, there was a human in front of him.

“Oh!” He startled, and tried to think of an appropriate introduction. Last he’d been on earth there’d been a lot more general heraldry, brusqueness. He didn’t know the proper allegiances anymore, and he would loathe ending up in shackles in some dingy dungeon. Again.

“Hello there!” He tried, awkwardly, forcing himself upright regardless of the throb between his temples. “I, er, do apologize for the interruption. Awful spot of trespassing it seems I’ve stumbled into. An accident, I assure you, but regardless—”

“Wait,” The human blinked, she had the loveliest green eyes he noticed, and some sort of long cape. She was pointing something at him, he realized, the frying pan as he’d discover later, but it appeared to be less threatening and more like a shield. She was afraid of him, then _. Oh, dear._

“Who-who are you?” She spoke with a lower voice, as though attempting to sound confident and fearless. Heavens, but she was such a young thing!

“Ah,” Aziraphale had a moment of panic, unsure if it was still the done thing to reveal oneself in a blaze of light and impart divine commandments. That had been falling out of fashion last he’d spoken with any large number of humans, but one never could know. Perhaps it would be best to play the safe route.

“Apologies, of course. My name is Aziraphale.” She tilted her head, bottom lip trembling.

“You don’t…. look like a thief,” she moved closer, hesitantly, bird-like. “Are you?”

Aziraphale paled then, “What? No! Goodness, why-ever would I…?” He trailed off as he began to notice the finer details of their surroundings. Namely, the cape he’d thought must be the fashion currently (he never could seem to keep up), was actually rather…attached. Not only so, but was trailing from her side to the bed, where it was pulled taut around his center, to the window, and the rafters above. The gold shone and dazzled in the sunlight beautifully, and went on for nearly an infinity and double.

She seemed to notice his stare, and frowned, pulling at her hair (good lord, that was all her hair wasn’t it?), tightening the bit keeping him still.

Aziraphale realized he had a few options then. He could miracle himself out, miracle her memories of him, send up a nice report to Gabriel about a young lady he’d imparted divine will upon, and find somewhere far less populated to recuperate. He could miracle her asleep and sneak out, rely on the uncertainty of dreams he supposed. 

The girl’s green eyes were rounded out in something a touch too close to fear as it was, anyways. He glanced around the room again, looking beyond the hair for some sort of indication as to whether other humans would be joining them. More miracles, more chance of Gabriel intervening after all.

His eyes caught on the strange sparseness of the place. Not in objects, as there appeared to be multiple paintings adorning the walls in a child’s clumsy (but clearly talented!) style, a bookshelf (sorely lacking if you asked him), a tentative meal preparing station, but beyond that there were… walls. Just, walls. He appeared to be in a sole room, a door stretching into the rest of the space, but no immediately evident means of exiting. Walls and walls and not another living sole beyond the one fiercely brave young child who appeared to have attempted to wrap his ankle despite being terrified of his presence.

There was a terrible stillness to the place, a sparseness that went beyond what one could cover up.

Aziraphale hadn’t talked to many humans on any real level since his time on Earth. He’d talked to Jesus, of course. Found a comfort in the man’s kind eyes and understanding that reminded him of his days before demotion, when he’d had the comfort of knowing She was listening to him, that She knew best where he was to be. He’d also got along rather well with Adam and Eve, although they no longer seemed to recognize him after their escape. He'd rather liked Abel before the whole er, rock business. 

The problem wasn’t that humans weren’t interesting to him; they were, achingly so, brimming with so many thoughts, so many feelings. They _created,_ for heaven’s sake, and were rewarded for it! Aziraphale just seemed to attach himself too strongly to a certain type of human, the ones thrumming with the saddest form of love, with sepia toned knowledge of good and a desire to do it, but a misplaced certainty that their version would not be enough. Gabriel called it a ‘bad habit’, said his naivety shone through when he became attached, that they would use it to their advantage. That humans and their soppy feelings were ‘cute’, but he said it with the same tenseness as he said naïve, the way that meant he wanted the word off his lips as soon as possible, lest it begin to permeate. The way Aziraphale knew meant ‘bad’.

This was the root of it, the heart of the unnameable half thought in him he refused to let rise. Aziraphale looked at this strange lonely human, the way her fear was outlined in a shade of hope, and he knew they were tied from the same song. Becoming attached was only a half breath afterwards, he could no more miracle himself out of her life than he could miracle himself into the right kind of angel, and he’d been trying that for centuries.

“My dear,” He said, carefully. “I am not a thief. I assure you, I didn’t know there was anyone up here or I would have found somewhere else to stay out of the rain. You have nothing to fear from me.” He put a little bit of emphasis in there, enough of a half suggestion to reassure her. Her shoulders untensed, just slightly.

He gestured at his injured ankle. “It seems I am in your debt it appears, however. Excellent work by the by, dear girl.”

She put her hand on her hip, squinting at him thoughtfully. “You’re definitely not a thief. Thieves don’t say things like ‘dear girl’.”

Marvel upon marvels, humans were. “Oh?”

She shook her head. “None of the books I’ve read say so. They’re all ‘give me this’ and ‘I’ve got a weapon’ that. You don’t even have any weapons.” She frowned. “What are you, then? How’d you get into my tower?”

He spread his hands on the covers, palms up. “I climbed,” he smiled.

She looked down at his leg, and raised a brow. “You did not.”

 _Clever one, she was._ “Well, how else could I have appeared here?”

She frowned again, lowering her weapon. “I was looking up at the sky, and then you were there. You didn’t climb.” She didn’t look afraid, then. Strangely, the idea that he had appeared miraculously in front of her was less terrifying than the idea he was a climbing regular human. Interesting.

“I didn’t,” he decided to agree.

“Are… are you a sorcerer? A wizard?”

He inwardly was thrilled by the concept, he did love the… what had Crowley called it? Dramatics of it all. “I suppose so. I like to think I’m more of a traveler. I collect books, you see.”

“If you are magic, why are you still tied up?” _Definitely a clever one, oh, she was very good!_

He snapped, and the hair was nicely braided up at her side. She gasped, dropping her weapon with a loud clang. The first real noise he’d heard in these stone walls besides the two of them, his heart ached. She stared at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. Something flickered in her gaze, a lightning flash of an unnameable emotion, something that screamed of long nights and uncertainty, of a longing that was fenced off and packaged away sensibly but still strained at the edges.

Aziraphale knew it well. Found it twined around his heart whenever he thought of green grass and candle light and parchment and- well. There was no place for that, now.

He could read the thoughts flickering in her mind like trails of a comet, bright and flaring in the creative expanses of her mind. She could tell him to leave, he supposed. She could and he would go, but he wouldn’t forget the way the walls closed her in so coldly, the way her voice was hesitant in this space like she didn’t have much reason to use it so loudly. She could ask him what he was, humans often did that, and he wouldn’t lie if she asked.

She stuck her hand out. “My name is Rapunzel. Can you show me?” He began to frown, a slight divot of the brows, an explanation about how magic was complicated forming somewhere in his throat, when she shook her head.

“The books, can you show me?”

 _Ah,_ he thought with a thrill, and smiled.

At the root of it, this grand thing Rapunzel must be at the center of with all her unshakeable aura of optimism and kindness, was a spark of curiosity. A need to ask questions, and a hesitance that meant she’d been told not to. At the center of the root of it all was the courage to ask anyways, to want to learn regardless, to see and to explore and to live. Gabriel called it naivety, the unquenchable wonder woven around the fabric of the lining of who Aziraphale was made to be. Aziraphale looked at Rapunzel, with her strange bright hair, and her wide eyes, and the stone closing her in like a bird in a cage, and thought that wonder was truly beautiful, then.

“My dear, I should love to.”

Crowley was bored, had been for a while, in fact. If he thought hard enough about it, which was to say not very hard at all, he’d probably been bored since about Rome. Probably exactly since the archangel prick himself Gabriel decided to pop in for a nice how do you do in the middle of dinner, and force Crowley to pop back into a snake for the first time in a decade in order to fit himself under the table and hide. Probably exactly since he’d realized that Aziraphale was being dragged back Upstairs for a ‘performance review’ and knew with a sinking feeling he wouldn’t be back for a while.

The angel told him about it, once. That heaven liked to do these check ins of sorts, said it was a ‘dangerous world’ and they were ‘concerned’ about the state of his proprietary well-being or some such nonsensical five-dollar bureaucratic word. Aziraphale had said it like it was a kindness, at first. That the archangels hyper-fixation on him and his incomplete minor tasks was a clerical necessity but that they took extra interest in him because they wanted him to do well, and Lord help Aziraphale, he truly thought he needed it. As if any bloody angel could ever genuinely care about anything the way that one odd angel did, as if his oddness was a problem and not a fantastical gift in itself.

Either way, he didn’t come back for a while after those.

Crowley had been counting; five hundred and ten years, four months, and twelve days give or take (not that he needed to, he was right). Unless the angel was avoiding him, that was one hell of a business meeting.

The earth was less…interesting without the angel to complain to. Without someone who’d been here all along and understood how funny it all was, how interesting the humans were, how no one above or below seemed to get that free will truly was the heart of everything and whittling down one soul to force them into being Bad or Good never tasted as sweet as when they just, chose it for themselves. The sunsets were killer, don’t get him wrong, but after a hundred years it was less fun when he couldn’t turn around, ruffle some unruffable feathers and go ‘quite a view, right?’.

He’d taken to dabbling somewhere in the in between. Tempting required getting humans to trust you, he knew, but sometimes they didn’t even need anyone to do the actual tempting. Just a friend who listened and bounced ideas back at them. Sometimes they even decided, despite all odds, to do the right thing anyways. He didn’t stick around too long after that, usually, lest the cloying warm feeling spread too high near the swirling center of him.

It was…. Lonely.

Crowley had always been alone, before. In heaven he’d sort of gotten dragged into Morningstar’s crew because they’d been the cool kids, and they’d laughed at things he’d said and invited him along, but he didn’t think they’d ever _known him_. He didn’t know them either though, so it worked. Until it didn’t he supposed. Before them, even, he’d been…. He didn’t know what he’d been. What he was expected to be, probably. Said the right things at the right times on occasion, failed to make Michael laugh on others, garnered consternation for ‘trying’ things but did a well enough job nobody really questioned him. More or less exactly how he carried on Downstairs too.

It was better if he put up a front, safer. Couldn’t get himself in trouble if everything he said was debatably a half joke, if he was sharp and scoffing and unfailingly charming. Didn’t much want for company, couldn’t trust other demons you know. Didn’t want angels either, with their unquestioning stick up their own arsery, and the paperwork and the fake smiles. He couldn’t deal with the disingenuity of it all, not from the ‘good guys’.

And then, well. Aziraphale was an exception to a lot of things. Wasn’t so much a choice to let his guard down around the angel as much as something Aziraphale had cannonballed through when he’d been so bloody fascinated by everything in the garden, when he’d helped Eve find the best grapes, when he’d given away the blessed sword. Almost like Crowley hadn’t had a guard at all.

And then he’d kept vanishing.

Crowley was bored, not longing. Certainly not pining, just. Bored. And boredom maybe led him to conversations with humans he hadn’t cared for before, maybe led him to chats with Michelangelo (loved the absolute bitterness and bastard-ry of the guy who’d been personally asked to paint a bloody Church, the snake biting portion was absolutely inspired) who reminded him of a certain someone, maybe led him to following around more humans afterwards. He always left before it became anything… too much. Humans were short lived things, after all. Wouldn’t do to get emotional over it.

He always seemed to find himself lurking around the down on their luck poets, though. The artists who had this beautiful lancing twist of acerbic loneliness that led them to shocking displays of pettiness and alternative bouts of obscene tenderness. The kids in torn clothes and ragged dreams that held bright and steadfast until they got too big for them.

Eugene was sort of obvious, really, knowing his own track record. But he was different, too. He’d been this tiny bedraggled thing, dragging around a shabby book drawn with faded out ink printed images, a gap toothed smile and big blue sky adventures. Crowley maybe pushed a piece of bread off a nearby cart once or twice, maybe made sure the book wouldn’t rip or tear, maybe had a wealthy man fall asleep at a bar and drop his coin purse in a certain barmaid’s pocket. All for the plan of edging the kid towards the adventures, he told himself. It was either that or some sort of heroic quest.

The kid had surprised him, though.

Turned around and gave the coins Crowley slipped into his lap to the older lady down the street or bought his mom nice shoes. Made sure to only steal from the rich merchants and never the shopkeeper with three small ones at home. Took the fall for the petty crimes his gang would stumble into, and never once breathed a word of who else had been involved.

But, as always, the tides had to turn. He’d assumed, given the beating the world had already given most of the kids on the block, it would be for the better. Should have known Her hand in this wouldn’t be so straightforward, really. Should have known since Crowley was involved, She’d be more interested in screwing things up.

Eugene’s parents dying in a freak accident out of town was a little much to wrap the mind around, though. They’d been going to make a sale, too. Finally have some real cash in their pockets that hadn’t been miracle’d there. Reliable, a solid future for their boy.

She really was a cruel card dealer when She wanted to be.

He got a little more jaded after that; when Crowley passed by there was less bright heroic swordfights painting his dreams in sunny shades, more devil-may-care brittle laughing. More risk taking, less friendships. Adults nearby whispered that he was a troublemaker, he got tossed from orphanage to orphanage and carried his shabby unbreakable book the whole time, told the other kids wilder and wilder tales with glowing eyes that held less kindness for the sake of kindness, and more kindness as a revenge.

The whispers became louder, over the years, Eugene mixing himself up with worse and worse crowds. Adults sized him up and scoffed, and the light would dim in Eugene’s eyes and then flare up colder. Like the kid was throwing himself into being exactly what the world saw him as, like he’d taken it as a personal honour rather than something to fight against.

Crowley tried not to hang around so much, not when the whole play of it all felt like being watched somehow.

Couldn’t avoid the way Eugene eventually sought him out, though.

Crowley had been planning on causing some kind of low level mayhem, maybe stoppering up the wheels on the local rich merchants carts, having it throw produce all around the alleyway, making it look like the local aristocrat’s fault. Good old minor inconveniences leading to a life time feud between two blood lines, and conveniently delivering food to all the kids in the neighborhood. But that was purely an accident, of course. A by product, if one would.

He’d sauntered up through the marketplace, throwing a bit of magic into things in order to come across as casual as you please, when the lithe form of Eugene plowed directly into him.

Several things went through Crowley’s mind, then. Namely, that it shouldn’t have been possible for Eugene to perceive him at all. Secondly, and more pressingly, that the kid looked furious. Thirdly, that his bloody nose was a little too strong for anything less than a broken nose, and finally, that the bruises and swollen eye meant there was trouble.

“I know you,” the kid said. “I seen you, lurking around all the time. You never sell anything, but you always have coin.”

Crowley didn’t know what to say, the kid shouldn’t have been able to notice that either. The kid’s dark eyes were absolutely locked on his through Crowley’s glasses and there was Crowley feeling for all the world as though Eugene could _see_ him.

“I know you,” he stressed again. “And you know me.”

Crowley glanced behind Eugene, spotted the group of older far more dangerous boys strolling down the alleyway where Eugene had stumbled from. The boys he’d been noticing (not worrying) that Eugene had been spending more time with, that Crowley knew only had big dark stretches of plans about treason and other things Hastur would be absolutely titillated by if he knew. He noticed several things at once; the object Eugene was badly concealing in his shirt, square and flat and familiar, the way his dark eyes were flickering with thin threads of fear mixed with something finer, something more fragile and fleeting, the way his aura was screaming at Crowley with desperation. Eugene was backed into a wall, here, and Crowley was his only way through.

“I do,” he said, simply. “And because I know you, Eugene, I’m going to tell you very clearly that you should definitely not try to open the butcher’s back door in exactly ten seconds, and you will definitely not find it open. I’m also not going to suggest very, very strongly, that you do not try to watch what happens next. Course, you don’t have to listen to me, though.”

Eugene nodded at him. “Right.”

He didn’t say thank you, Crowley thought very, very carefully, about how much he absolutely did not adore that he didn’t say thank you.

The kid scrambled off, to do or not do exactly as Crowley said (he did, Crowley found him there a few minutes later, reading through the book he’d carried since childhood that miraculously had held together, flipping each page as though it was gold itself, and mouthing the words. He looked at Crowley as the door opened, and Crowley had the sudden feeling he was staring down to the bottom of a well and seeing his reflection) and Crowley turned to face down the group of older boys. He let a smile slither across his face that stretched a little too wide and plucked the shades from his cheeks with a practiced motion.

It was nice to stretch out a little, he supposed, with no Aziraphale around to tut at him. Not nearly as satisfying, though. 

There was something to be said of strange cosmic moments, then. In the spaces in between, at least. Crowley had never been a very good demon, through and through. Oh, he was excellent at his job, far better at it than anyone downstairs ever seemed to be, don’t misunderstand. It was only that he couldn’t relish in it the way he was meant to, the way the others did. It was a job to him, that was all. He got the satisfaction of being the best at what he did, of having commendations and awards and the seething jealousy from Hastur, and enjoyed the creativity of it all, but he never much cared for sticking around when it played out.

Bit ironic, probably, that he always seemed to get hit with it anyways. Sew some seeds of chaos like he was meant to, get unceremoniously walloped by the ripple effect down the road as quick as a blink, and so on. Usually with a lot of consternation and hilarity for Aziraphale, if the angel would ever let himself show it (typically had to be drunk for that, repressed thing).

Save a boy from a band of thugs here, become stuck as one pseudo-parental figure there.

On went Crowley’s existence, apparently.

Eugene, however, proved to be a bit of a cock up in the whole ‘on with existence’ portion of their little deal. For one thing, he was always getting into trouble. For another, Crowley, stupidly, constantly felt the need to get him out of it.

Individually this didn’t seem to be as grandiose a problem as it might suggest, but cumulatively, it had the effect of a minor heart palpitation for a being that didn’t have a heart, except it was constantly. As in, for a being that didn’t have a heart and therefore could not, in addition, expire of old age or keep track of time in a sensical fashion, it was a problem. He’d even manifested a grey hair for the occasion.

Aziraphale would have called him dramatic, probably.

Crowley wasn’t supposed to care about any human ne’re-do-well’s, he was supposed to foment the distrust of other humans within their brain, stir up the pot very literally and fade into the background to feast upon the suffering. The whole ‘encouraging the kid to engage in questionably amoral behaviour’ bit should be the end of it, and yet he’d been sacked with the baggage of ‘a disgusting array of nervous energy when the kid did actually engage in said behaviour and inevitably was met with consequences’ as well. Which seemed, actually, par for the course. Didn’t mean he had to _like_ it.

“Oh, Crowley!” Eugene waved, head and both arms currently stuck within some stupid wooden block that made the kid have to bend over awkwardly. “Wondered when you’d show up.”

Crowley put his best ‘put upon sigh’ into the air and a hand on his hip to really send home the whole performance. Internally, he was relieved. “You,” he pointed. “should not be using me as a get out of trouble card. I aim for trouble, I thrive off trouble.”

Eugene rolled his eyes. “Yes, absolutely. Which is why you’ll make sure I don’t end up in the brig, so I can go out and cause more. Right?”

Crowley’s eyebrow twitched. “I hate when you use my own logic against me.”

Eugene smiled brightly, which aggravated Crowley’s awful mood further simply because it didn’t actually make him grumpier at all. In fact it did the opposite, which really messed everything up. He could practically hear Aziraphale complaining that there were two of them now.

Eugene was a bit lankier these days, growing into a handsome young man at an alarming rate. It made something old and tired leach into his metaphorical bones, something wistful and pre-emptively sorrowful. He did his best to dance around it without stepping too near.

He waved a hand and the block fell off neatly in two halves, Eugene stretched and rubbed his wrists. “Man, they do not prioritize comfort here, do they?”

Crowley hummed, made sure to miracle the manacles onto whatever guard had decided to leave his nineteen-year-old trouble-maker in the grossest part of the dungeon without food for a full day. It made him feel a little more at odds with the world, which was exactly where he liked to be. “Well, does seem to happen when you steal a royal pendant. Surprised they didn’t just bin you, right down to the rats.” They practically had, but that was besides the point.

Eugene pouted. “Can’t pretend you aren’t a little happy I pulled that one off?”

Crowley snorted, and snapped his fingers to open the dungeon locks in front of them. “Wouldn’t exactly call that pulling it off, kid. They took all your gold.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s not great I’ll admit, but I did actually snag a priceless item in front of a room full of people without anyone noticing. That’s pretty good, right?”

“Good is not the word I’d use. Impressive? Well, I’d give you that if you hadn’t tripped in front of the guard on your way out. Points for effort, maybe.” The doors swung open easily, and he scrunched his nose up slightly at the continuous wafts of mildew and dust in each room. It was glorious for a dungeon, all of the guards would be miserable on this shift too and take it out on each other half as often as they did on the prisoners. Didn’t want to smell it, though. Hated how often he had in the past five odd years.

Eugene protested weakly behind him, trailing along happily enough. “I only tripped because the guard tried to subtly shove me! Not my fault they have a thing against regular people.”

“Or regular people who have their face plastered on wanted posters all across the citadel?”

“Come on, we both know it’s not like he recognized me from that. They never get the nose right.”

Crowley knew, he took a lot of pleasure in making sure each one was more ridiculous than the last. Half for Eugene’s safety sake (not that he’d admit that if he was under threat of holy water), but mostly for the sheer outrage the kid had at each one. Stress relief, probably.

“One of these days you might actually be stuck in the muddled up trouble you find yourself in, you know.” Crowley added mildly, as they finally pushed past the last gated doorway towards the sunlight.

Eugene gave him his best put upon sigh. “As you’ve said, the last 24 times.”

“Maybe 26 is your unlucky number.”

Aziraphale brought her books. Any books, really. Poetry, romance, books about plants that had been studied in a variety of lands, books about historical accounts of regencies long past. Everything, anything he could get his hands on. He understood wanting to know, wanting to see, and he understood… well, understanding, in the confines you were able to.

Some of the books weren’t technically possible to have, in the most technical sense. Some not in an English Rapunzel knew, but he helped with that along with hiding them within plain sight whenever…she came by.

At first, back when she’d been a wee thing, he’d thought to whisk her away somewhere. Everything about the tower and the girl and the ‘mother’ was seeped in something cold and lonesome, like a large expanse tied up within itself in all the ways it wasn’t large at all. He’d wanted to take her somewhere warm, he’d dreamt of it. Even established a half decent ‘not whole truth’ that he could swallow around and convince himself Gabriel couldn’t technically disapprove of. It was what Crowley would have done, which made it technically wrong as well, but also, inherently in a ‘not fully thinking on’ kind of way, very clearly the only thing Aziraphale could possibly have wanted to do.

It was only, when he’d half suggested ‘going on a trip’ to her while passing along his bag of colourful pages of far away places, she’d stopped.

“We’d be bringing Mother too, right?” She’d asked, voice strangely light and heavy all at once.

He paused, hummed noncommittally. “Well, I’m sure your Mother has other places to visit, hm?”

“No,” Rapunzel said, very clearly in a way her young face didn’t often suit. “She doesn’t. She… she doesn’t have anyone else at all. She has to come, too.”

It was terrible, understanding this. It ached in a hollow way, reminiscent of formalities Aziraphale had never been fabulous at performing correctly. Rapunzel’s eyes were solid, unmoved granite but so impossibly kind and sad.

“Dear girl,” Aziraphale knelt down, smiling sadly. “You…. You’re very kind.”

She shook her head. “S’not kind to love someone, it’s just what you do!”

It was funny, Aziraphale had read many books- there weren’t nearly enough printed in his opinion, although the stories some people told he wished he could preserve on some sort of paper form- and enough about children and parenting to have heard of the concept. The idea of the simple sort of knowing humans possessed, the certainty of knowing that led them to so much horrible acts alongside breathtaking generosity, existing within the youngest of them. Well, it seemed like a very nice if entirely dramatic cliché to him, then.

Not that books had existed nearly long enough to possess such a thing.

That was the catch about clichés however. They were popular because they were steeped in truth, somewhere far back.

Regardless, Aziraphale hadn’t known where to bring the girl even if he did miracle her far away. He was… naïve, yes. Perhaps in the awful biting way Gabriel meant it, but he wasn’t unaware enough to escape the truth of human greed. Poor dear Rapunzel was in possession of something truly different, the type of thing many humans would go to great lengths to keep for themselves, regardless of who it was attached to. The sort of thing Upstairs would requisition as his duty, a sign of saintly-hood or some such pretentiousness.

The reality was that she radiated concentrated miracle, the kind that indicated a young angel attempting to work out an effective miracle out on the field gone a bit. Awry. Typically, these events were extensively catalogued, which soured the whole so called coincidence when Aziraphale put together the particular markings of Hastur around the gleam in ‘Mother’ Gothel’s eyes. Gothel had long been worn away by careful suggestions, the kind of inane craftsmanship that screamed to Aziraphale of a long suffering Crowley eye roll. Not that she likely had needed all that much convincing, in his professional opinion.

Gothel was an encroaching mould underneath the stone, as far as Aziraphale was concerned. She was the blight that blocked out a nice sunny day, and he could not possibly hate anyone, surely, but he certainly hoped her unnaturally extended life was worth the eventual jaunt within the lowest circles Downstairs later on. Not that it could possibly be worth it.

He….. did not care for her. At all.

The first time she’d appeared in the nice sphere of knowledge sharing and tea the two of them had indulged in, had been a veritable storm cloud during a picturesque stroll. He’d taken to attempting to share company with the strange girl in the tower almost instantly; he had not yet mastered the art of human culture, but she was. Intriguing. Quick on her feet, smiley and optimistic, yet carried a layered sadness within her that seemed too large for her young features. He’d wanted, more than he’d wanted anything in a long time in fact, to help. But he hadn’t known what the sadness stemmed from, or how to resolve it, and had been more or less unceremoniously banned from miracles that didn’t require mountains of justifications that one single human simply would not satisfy.

So, he’d decided to learn.

And she’d been ecstatic to learn with him. It was a nice companionship.

They’d been discussing the latest bout of mountain exploration novellas he’d discovered, a bit dry but the descriptions at the peak of the world made up for it, when he heard it.

“Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”

The voice was, shrill. Odd. He hadn’t known there was anyone else that knew of the poor dear tucked away up here, although he’d supposed she must have been acquiring food in some fashion. He’d been a tad excited, at first, to see this other half of human life so directly in these new times he’d stumbled into, until he saw Rapunzel tense ever so slightly.

Her wide green eyes flickered to him for a moment, with a flash of panic that didn’t make immediate sense to him until-

“You have to hide,” she whispered, urgently. “My- Mother doesn’t like guests. I’m… not supposed to have any.”

Aziraphale snorted. “Oh, surely she only means ruffians or the like? We can have a lovely sit down and chat and I’ll sort it right out, dear girl.”

“Uhm. No it’s…. not really-“ she trailed off lowly, scurrying about the space abruptly and closing doors, placing curtains strategically over portions of wall paintings, hiding books under stair boards.

“I’m sorry, Rapunzel- whatever appears to be the issue?” He stood, tea cup still in hand. She glanced over at him sheepishly.

“I…. I don’t think she’d be. Happy with you. Here.”

He’d been about to argue otherwise, a tad affronted, when he caught something. Other, within her posture. She looked frantic, nearly. Whites of her eyes visible and teeth a thin straight line. He thought abruptly of Crowley, of vague allusions to ‘screaming and worse’ from Downstairs, of the way he tensed whenever certain sounds burst around them.

Oh, he thought, horribly. Helplessly.

“I am a sorcerer, remember?” He winked playfully at her, although it felt as half hearted on his face as it echoed in his heart. “I was never here.”

The facts surrounding Mother Gothel were as such: one, she radiated a certain type of age that didn’t show on her features and a greed that stretched back to darker memories Aziraphale didn’t much care to think on. Two, she looked at Rapunzel with a particular gleam to her eye that was reminiscent of many wars, a desire to own, to keep. Three, her voice was terrible, if he did say so himself, all shrieks and demands and never enough consideration for anything other than her own goals.

And finally, four. Aziraphale could see love, often revelled in seeing it, from the enjoyment of a breeze that lifted from shoulders and swam in the air like a sunbeam baking against the earth to the dazed swirl that turned the sky warm and whole around two lovers embracing. He wasn’t obsessed with the sight, more that he desired to witness it the way one would desire to admire a painting; to appreciate the complexities he would never be able to mimic in himself.

The fourth fact of Mother Gothel was that when she said ‘I love you’, Aziraphale saw nothing.

He’d well and decided he didn’t like the woman the second he’d heard her screech that afternoon, but hiding in the spaces in between sight had solidified it in a way that extended beyond words. The way she twisted words like knives and jabbed them back at the poor young dear, who just accepted them like earned gifts. It troubled him. There was a pit developing right next to his heart that he couldn’t understand or name, but it grew larger with every moment Rapunzel’s smile dimmed, with every painting she hid behind thick curtains, with every dream she didn’t dare hold too loudly.

He wanted to whisk her away more than anything, but he knew so very little about happiness himself, about mortal needs. They were so fragile, and dear, and he was nothing but a bumbling angel who’d been given strict orders he dare not cross without risking another hundred years tossed away in ‘Educational Meetings’. Besides, Rapunzel appeared to have so very little choice in so much of her upbringing this far.

She deserved to have the choice about the rest of it.

“My darling,” he said, one quiet morning while Rapunzel happily poured over the newest addition of books he’d supplied. She hummed just a little, gasping quietly and kicking her feet excitedly. She felt the whole story with all of her, it was rather endearing. He’d managed to find a book containing what he’d considered to be a rather dashing tale regarding a dragon this time, and he was touched to see her enjoy it so thoroughly. He’d almost put off asking, just to let her enjoy the moment longer.

“You know, I am rather quite good at this magic business. Could do more than bring you books, in fact. If you wished of course!”

Rapunzel paused, looked up at him with wide confused eyes. She’d grown into her smile, these past few years, but her wide eyes still seemed so much like the curious young girl he’d first met. “More than books?”

He nodded, a small smile playing across his lips. “Well, that is… If you wished to see the world up close. Visit those lights you enjoy so much, perhaps even the stars!”

They’d spent a long evening once, discussing the stars and the lights she saw once a year. Aziraphale had never looked closely at the twinkling pinpricks between the thick blanket of night before, he’d noticed them of course, but there was a difference in noticing and seeing that he was beginning to realize. Something about Rapunzel’s enthusiasm drew it from him like a well bubbling over, the splashes of light, the way they drew pictures with the eye. Something about it had called to him, much like her floating lights did with her.

Rapunzel regarded him for a long moment, a flicker of excitement warring with too many other variables to name. “Mother wouldn’t like it. If I left. She says its dangerous.”

Aziraphale hummed, “It… can be, yes.”

She tilted her head. “But you’d make sure I was safe.”

The absolute trust in her words, oh, his heart nearly broke. “My dear, I will never allow you to be in danger.”

“I know. I…. I want to, see the lights.” She frowned, Aziraphale waited for her to catch her words. “But… it wouldn’t be the good thing to do, would it? To leave when she says not to?”

Aziraphale sighed. “I… I suppose it wouldn’t.”

Rapunzel reached over and patted his hand. “We’ll go one day, on my birthday maybe. She’ll have to say yes then, right?”

Aziraphale smiled, thinking of years of stepping in line and ‘good work’ compliments and empty, barren, halls. A part of him felt a bit like crying, strangely. “Of course, yes. You’re absolutely right. Patience is the key. How are you liking this book so far?”

And so it went, believing in a someday because it was easier than hearing the never underneath.

Or, at least, it would have gone.

Aziraphale often spent his days when he was not sitting in companionable silence reading, adventuring wherever his trail of whispers led him. Attempting to find the newest book, the best strung words, dutifully fulfilling the tasks meant for him but never straying farther than he had to. Anytime Heaven requested he spend time abroad or dealing with a particularly annoying diplomat, he worried. Rapunzel was a strong and deeply optimistic individual, but the stone walls could not give far enough to give her the room she needed. The kind he hoped he could provide in between pages and imagination, with all the rolling landscapes and adventures stored within them.

Perhaps, he also felt a bit corralled in, himself. Not able to discuss the wonder of the written word with anyone upstairs, not willing to feign humanity long enough with the finnicky royalty with all of their paranoia and power hunger. No Crowley anywhere nearby to gossip with.

He… missed Crowley, he thought. Just a bit. Like a piece of himself had gone travelling and he could no longer find it, but, well, that was a touch dramatic for an enemy was it not?

He found himself on his days away from the tower, staring up at the night sky. Wondering why the blinking distant lights seemed to be asking something of him, wondering why they felt so near. There was a puzzle to be found, he supposed, a coded message to unravel and his mind was stuck within the myriad of swirling distant spirals.

They felt to him like a song he almost knew the tune of. Like they were waiting for him, specifically, to remember the words.

The stars were all isolated themselves, were they not? Locked in the cold set upon a destined path they could no more change than they could refuse to be.

Melodramatic, he’d been reading too much of the noble’s poetry selection.

He supposed him and Rapunzel shared more in common than the loneliness, all in all. Believing lights to be calling to them and all.

Aziraphale had almost devised a plan, when Mother Gothel had stormed out and slammed the very last gate on what stilted dreams Rapunzel had left- he’d not been present for that one but he’d ached to have been. She deserved something, surely. Bad luck, at the very least. He’d stopped by to visit with a rather good selection of books and a lovely dessert dish for her birthday, and gotten the shuttered remains and pieced the conversation together somewhat on his own.

Perhaps Aziraphale waited too long to decide things, between all his dithering, but he was rather resolved to getting Rapunzel to those lights this time if nothing else. He’d been about to change the tide of things himself, Gabriel’s disappointment aside, when suddenly he felt something familiar.

Rapunzel had seemingly noticed something too, stopping mid forced smile with a jolt of panic at the clear scuffing sound of something most definitely climbing up the side of the tower.

Neither of them had expected a young man to suddenly appear over the edge, and Aziraphale had instinctively miracle’d him out of balance just as Rapunzel snagged a nearby pan.

He couldn’t say he didn’t feel a tad sorry for the boy, he knew first hand how that felt. However, he was distracted in the moment by the very certain feeling of familiarity rising from the boy like a perfume, something a little burnt and sweet all at once, although he was positive he’d had no such encounter with him before.

“Oh no,” Rapunzel whispered.

They both stared at the limp form in front of them on the cobblestone. Aziraphale quite resoundingly agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> here is the deepest secret nobody knows  
> (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows  
> higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)  
> and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
> 
> I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”  
> ― E.E. Cummings
> 
> You can find me @clankclunk most places!


End file.
